Enclosed regions such as pipes, drains, ducts, enclosures, or other passages, are often difficult to service and inspect due to limited accessibility. Plumbing “snakes” as known in the art, are often employed to locate and clean blockages that can occur in such regions. Snakes can be fitted with different cleaning implements or tools for clearing or removing different types of blockages and impediments from the enclosed region and enable flow therethrough.
Typically, a pipe or drain line will become blocked repeatedly at the same location requiring the same service time after time. In many occasions, a different drain cleaning operator is tasked with clearing the blockage and so may not be aware of the type and/or location of repeated blockage(s). As a result, the operator will typically reclean the entire line. This can increase the time and cost associated with the job, which is undesirable.
Accordingly, a need exists in the drain cleaning and plumbing fields to provide a new system and technique in which information is obtained concerning point(s) of interest and their location(s) within a pipe or drain line. A need also exists for storing or archiving such information for subsequent review or use.
Property owners such as home owners or facility managers such as industrial property or plant managers may also benefit from such information. Thus, a need exists for systems and methods that not only provide such information, but also for generating reports and/or mapped data that detail the point(s) of interest and location(s) of such in pipes or drain lines of the associated home or facility.